120 superior rankings awarded, over 660 students recognized in fall 2025 NSMC

The JEA National Student Media Contests were all completed online and on-site for the Fall 2025 JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention in Nashville.

In all, 1,668 students competed in photo, broadcast, graphic design, literary magazine, design and writing contests.

There were over 660 students recognized with 120 superior, 194 excellent and 352 honorable mention awards.

All the competitors had their submissions assessed by teams of judges. Those who competed in contests with online submissions have critiques available on the NSMC website. Contestants can log in with their username and password to view their critiques. Those who competed onsite received critique sheets with feedback at the awards ceremony.

“Congratulations to all of the students who participated in our Nashville National Student Media Contests,” Contests Chair Nancy Smith, MJE, said. “We had the largest group of competitors since fall 2019. The contest team was especially excited about all the new contest categories that were rolled out for the Nashville convention. There were more opportunities for broadcast programs including a special Convention Recap event. Those entries will be submitted by 1 p.m. CST Nov. 19. We hope to share some of those with everyone in a couple of weeks.”

Anyone who was not able to stay for the awards ceremony in Nashville on Nov. 16 will have their critiques and any awards they may have won mailed to them later this month.

Judges shared some of their thoughts about what some of the strengths were in the category and what are some general areas to look to improve in the future. The contest prompts and the critiques are great resources for classroom lessons and preparation for future contests.

“More than 250 advisers and professional journalists worked to provide critiques for all the student entries and judge each category,” Smith said. “We are so grateful for their time and expertise!”

In addition, through SmugMug students and advisers can view thousands of photos from JEA photo contests in each of the nine categories. The site houses all of the photos that have been recognized in past conventions so users can learn from those student photographers.

SmugMug has an interface that discourages copying of images and allows full display of metadata including camera data and captions. So photojournalists really can break down the photo to discuss technique, composition and the meaning of the images.

Fall 2025 NSMC winners